While most of the new handsets we played with at CES were running on dual or quad-core processors, the new Lenovo K800 proudly sported a single-core chip. The Lenovo K800 will be the very first Android powered phone to run on Intel’s new Atom Z2460 chip which is clocked at 1.6 GHz. The handset features a gorgeous 4.5-inch 720p display, an 8 megapixel shooter capable of recoding video at 1080p, front-facing camera all running on Android 2.3. Lenovo was being a little sly when we asked about Android 4.0, but we got the feeling that the K800 may be getting an Ice Cream Sandwich flavored update before it hits the Chinese market this spring.

The Lenovo K800 demo unit we played with was skinned to match Lenovo’s other Android devices. The home screen leaves a lot to be desired, but the custom media and gallery applications offered a unique experience which stack pictures, music and videos into different piles for easy sorting and custom organization on the fly.

The standout feature of the Lenovo K800 is the Intel Atom Z2460 chip which keeps the device running smooth even during benchmark testing. The unit we played with just happened to have Quadrant installed on it, so we launched it up and discovered that the Intel Atom Z2460 chip on the Lenovo K800 scored a 3489. Naturally, we’d like to stress that benchmark numbers don’t necessarily reflect real-life use scenarios, but they do give us an idea of what kind of performance we can expect from a handset. Since Quadrant is only optimized for single-core devices, we’re not surprised at all to see that the Intel Atom Z2460 scores a lot higher than the quad-core NVIDIA Tegra 3 powered devices.

Overall, the Lenovo K800 design and performance left us smiling. We’ve excited to see Intel finally getting into the Android segment with a chip that can keep up with the competition. For now, the handset is only scheduled to launch in Asian markets in Q2, but Lenovo is looking at a global launch for the K800 later this year.

Note: The specs mentioned in the video are a bit off since I was going off of memory since there was no spec card next to the handset at the Intel booth.

Nick is a tech enthusiast who has a soft spot for HTC and its devices. He started HTCsource.com (the first HTC blog) back in 2007 and later joined the Android and Me family in the summer of 2010.

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http://alxrock.deviantart.com alxrock

Looks alright, but I can’t get past the horrible skinned UI.

delinear

Yeah the UI is pretty awful – looks like it’s designed for the older generation with everything oversized, which makes the trendy lime green a bit of an odd choice (especially when they’re hinting at ICS – the vanilla UI in ICS has this beat hands down). The body looks a bit cheap and fragile too.

Vodeblog

Totally agree, the body look pretty much like plastic. Not very elegant but I believe the processor is strong enough to fight with the existing dual/qual core android phone.

http://www.jimtravis.com jimtravis

Have the Thinkpad tablet. At first, was not impressed with the large icons, but appreciate them more after using them. Level of transparency, color, and programs the icons execute are all changeable. Large icons are particlarly handy for quickly initiating your favorite five programs while barely looking at the screen.

http://midweststitch.com ajonrichards

Seems kind of pointless to manufacture a single-core phone when everything is starting to be optimized for multiple core processing.

http://varemenos.com/ Varemenos

cores are not everything

jak2rocks

I don’t think it’s such a big deal.

Jeff Pan

It is a big deal if you looking for a smooth UI experience!

Anders

Smooth UI experience has nothing whatsoever to do with the number of processor cores you have. To have a smooth UI, you need a nice implementation of GPU accelerated UI, which Android haven’t had (it has had accelerated UI, but not well implemented). Remember that our fruity enemy had had a smooth UI for a long time with only one core.

Shane Dumas

You are correct it is not all about the cores that make the experience. With what you said about apple having a smooth experience and having no issues they still chose to go to a dual core processor. It is not always about performance but about what people see when they are buying something. The other big part why apple always had a smooth experience was because their systems is nothing but a glorified app launcher. They have made the changes to start being able to do what Android does. It would be nice to see a web os phone run on the hardware android has now. That is a good comparison as both systems have similar features and run a lot of things at once.

clorj

A single core is capable of running many threads, therefore, if it is a good core, and the scheduling algorithm is good enough, it could match anything else in performance.

staryoshi

A single core chip is viable if the architecture is superior to other ARM offerings. I’m interested in the strength of the gpu and the battery life too.

GPU is a higher clocked SGX 540 (same as GN). Power consumption on paper is very good, must wait to see real life performance. Performance of core is better than ARM but would have been nice to have a newer multi-core GPU.

aranea

yeah battery power is what worries me. Maybe they have a clever way of clocking it down to save battery life depending on the usage.

Matt

Another Gingerbread phone with maybe ICS this Spring!

Any phone being released in 2012 should have ICS!!

http://theinternet-allofit.blogspot.com Jorge Branco

I actually don’t mind the UI, I think the big widget is pretty damn cool actually. But to call this a hands on is a little bit generous imo.

http://www.youtube.com/djmeas DjMeas

What’s in the top right of the notification area? It looks like there’s a blank spot there where the bar ends?

GRAW

Please, please, please, PLEASE, make the next Nexus with this!!!!!!

dafi81

customRom and everything is fine

spazby

Horrible ui

kieran

I ran the free program CF-Bench v1.1 on the Atom phone at CES and it compares veryï»¿ poorly to the Samsung Galaxy S2, HTC Sensation, and Motorola Atrix.
In fact the Google Nexus S performs far better in 2 out of 3 metrics too.
I was very disappointedï»¿ to see this to say the least, I was expecting the Atom to blow the other devices out the water.

Well it does not and it’s not me. CF-Bench is a standard benchmarking tool used in Android. Download it yourself and try it out. The Benchmark took like 5minutes to run on the Intel phone.

I ran the SAME benchmark tool on HTC, Motorola, Huwei, and Samsung phones that were all at the SAME convention.

The Atom was woefully behind ALL of them with the exception of the Google Nexus S, which still beat the Medfield phone in 2/3 metrics.

At the end of the day performance that matters is performance you realize at the top of the stack and in your hand, not performance you’re “supposed to have” based on questionable articles. I took a picture of the result with my phone at CES, if you like I can email it to you. CF-Bench is an impartial party.

Also it is a single core, but Medfield shows itself to the Linux Kernel as two cores, which means Intel must have hyperthreading built in. So arguing that it lags for lack of dual cores is a moot point, IMHO.

666

Dude, who’s more trusted? Some random dude citing one single benchmark or super reputable Aandtech with a battery of benchmarks? ARM is cool and all but Intel are no bums when it comes to performance.

kieran

I used to think the same. I’m working with Intel right now on an Atom project right now. I sent them my results to forward to the Medfield team, and asked for an explanation.

We’ll see what they say, which I’ll likely not be able to repeat.

CF-Bench is a very easy app to use, go download it yourself and try it out. I ran in on a lot of Android devices at CES and the fact is the Medfield platform running Android was one of the worst performers.

No need to believe me, just run it yourself…oh wait you weren’t at CES were you? lol.

Thomas MacDougall

Intel can become a major player in the smartphone processor market, because they have the means to produce faster, more computer-like smartphone processors. Get a Intel processor in the next google nexus by HTC and i’ll by one